charged him to use his utmost endeavours to put a check on the pirates
who sailed from New England, and nothing better occurred to him than to
obtain a commission for Kidd to act against the rovers. A general reward
of £50 was offered for the apprehension of each pirate, and £100 for
Every, increased in the following year to £500.

In December, a commission under the Admiralty Seal was issued to Kidd,
authorizing him to proceed against French shipping. He was to keep a
journal of his proceedings, and any ship captured was to be carried into
the nearest port and legally adjudged by a competent court. If condemned,
he might dispose of it according to custom. Six weeks later, a second
commission under the Great Seal was granted him, in his capacity of a
private man of war, to apprehend all pirates, freebooters, and sea rovers,
the names of Thomas Too (? Tew), John Ireland, Thomas Wake, and William
Maze, or Mace, being specially mentioned. Again, he was enjoined to keep
an exact journal of his doings, and the pirate ships he captured were to
be proceeded against according to law, in the same manner as French
captures. A subsequent warrant was granted to the syndicate, who figure
in it as the Earl of Bellamont, Edmund Harrison, William Rowley, George
Watson, Thomas Reynolds, and Samuel Newton. Under these unpretentious
names were hidden Lords Orford and Somers, and other Whig nobles. They
were to account for all goods and valuables captured in the rovers'
possession: one-tenth was to be reserved for the Crown, the rest being
assigned to them to recoup their expenditure.

The _Adventure_ carried thirty guns and rowed twenty-six or thirty oars.
In May, 1696, Kidd sailed from Plymouth for New York with a crew of about
seventy men. On the way he captured a small French vessel, which was
properly condemned, and the proceeds helped to complete the equipment of
the _Adventure_. In New York he filled up his crew to one hundred and